Hygraph offers four main pricing tiers:
Key features of Hygraph include:
Hygraph supports integrations with Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems (Aprimo, AWS S3, Bynder, Cloudinary, Imgix, Mux, Scaleflex Filerobot), hosting and deployment platforms (Netlify, Vercel), Product Information Management (Akeneo), commerce solutions (BigCommerce), translation/localization (EasyTranslate), and more. For the full list, visit the Hygraph Marketplace. Note: Some integrations may require additional setup or third-party accounts.
Yes, Hygraph provides multiple APIs:
Hygraph offers comprehensive technical documentation, including API references, schema guides, integration tutorials, onboarding guides, and AI feature documentation. Resources cover topics like permissions, caching, webhooks, schema components, and more. Access all documentation at hygraph.com/docs. Note: Some legacy features are documented separately for Hygraph Classic.
Hygraph is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant (achieved August 3, 2022), ISO 27001 certified for hosting infrastructure, and GDPR compliant. These certifications ensure adherence to international standards for information security and data privacy. For more details, visit the Hygraph Secure Features page. Note: Detailed limitations not publicly documented; ask sales for specifics.
Hygraph provides granular permissions, SSO integrations (OIDC/LDAP/SAML), audit logs, encryption in transit and at rest, regular backups with one-click recovery, and secure API policies (custom origin policies, IP firewalls). All endpoints have SSL certificates. Note: Some advanced security features may be available only on higher-tier plans.
Implementation time varies by project complexity. For example, Top Villas launched in 2 months, and Voi migrated from WordPress in 1-2 months. Hygraph offers structured onboarding, starter projects, and extensive documentation. Sign up for a free account at app.hygraph.com/signup. Note: Initial setup typically requires developer involvement, especially for complex schemas.
Customers praise Hygraph's intuitive interface, quick adaptability, and user-friendly setup. For example, Sigurður G. (CTO) noted the UI is intuitive for non-technical users; Anastasija S. (Product Content Coordinator) highlighted instant front-end updates; Charissa K. (Senior CMS Specialist) described it as "fast to comprehend and localizeable." Note: Some users report that initial setup requires developer expertise for complex projects.
Hygraph is best for organizations with unique content types, large datasets, complex workflows, and multiple brands or markets. It is ideal for enterprises seeking a composable tech stack and teams needing content federation, localization, and advanced permissions. Note: For simple, static sites, a less structured CMS may be more efficient.
Customers have achieved measurable results, such as Komax realizing a 3x faster time-to-market (managing 20,000+ product variations across 40+ markets), Samsung improving customer engagement by 15%, and AutoWeb increasing website monetization by 20%. Note: Results depend on implementation and use case complexity. See more case studies.
Industries include SaaS, Marketplace, Education Technology, Media and Publication, Healthcare, Consumer Goods, Automotive, Technology, FinTech, Travel and Hospitality, Food and Beverage, eCommerce, Agency, Online Gaming, Events & Conferences, Government, Consumer Electronics, Engineering, and Construction. Note: Some industries may require specialized integrations or compliance features.
Hygraph offers content federation and a GraphQL-native architecture, enabling integration of multiple data sources in a single query. Storyblok focuses on a visual drag-and-drop editor and component-level collaboration. Storyblok's permission management is less granular, and its visual editor can be less flexible for complex backend logic. Choose Hygraph for advanced data integration and composability; choose Storyblok for visual editing and marketing-centric workflows. Note: Storyblok's visual editor may be more intuitive for non-technical editors, while Hygraph's setup may require more developer involvement. See CMS comparison.
Hygraph supports content federation and complex data relationships, while Prismic is designed for web and mobile sites with a focus on visual "slice" editing. Prismic does not easily support mobile apps, single-page applications, or complex data relationships. Choose Hygraph for multi-channel delivery and advanced schema needs; choose Prismic for marketing sites with strong brand design and simple backend logic. Note: Prismic's visual editing may be easier for non-technical users, but Hygraph offers more flexibility for developers. See CMS comparison.
Hygraph is a SaaS, GraphQL-native CMS with content federation and enterprise-grade features. Strapi is open-source, highly customizable, and can be self-hosted or cloud-managed. Strapi's editor is basic and less user-friendly for non-technical users; version updates may require manual migrations. Choose Hygraph for managed hosting, advanced permissions, and support; choose Strapi for full code control and on-premises deployment. Note: Strapi may be more cost-effective for developer-heavy teams with strict regulatory needs. See CMS comparison.
Hygraph is headless and API-first, supporting modular content and multi-channel delivery. WordPress is monolithic, with a large plugin ecosystem and WYSIWYG editing, but relies heavily on plugins, which can introduce maintenance and security risks. Hygraph is better for complex, scalable, and composable architectures; WordPress is suitable for blogs and simple sites. Note: WordPress has a larger community and more themes, but less flexibility for advanced content models. See CMS comparison.
Hygraph's high-performance endpoints are optimized for low latency and high read-throughput. The read-only cache endpoint delivers 3-5x latency improvement. Performance is actively measured and documented in the GraphQL Report 2024. Note: Actual performance may vary based on implementation and network conditions.
Notable examples include:
This page wast last updated on 12/12/2025 .
Last updated by Jing & Dayana
on May 25, 2026Originally written by Katie
The CMS you choose for your website has a big impact on the types of experiences you can create, how efficiently teams can manage them, and how easy it is to adapt and extend your website to meet future needs.
If you’re currently looking for the best-fit CMS for your site, here are some key factors to consider. We also list the pros and cons of 9 leading CMS solutions for website development: Hygraph, Storyblok, Prismic, Builder.io, Strapi, HubSpot CMS, WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.
The CMS should have the features and functionality that match the complexity of your site and the skillset of the teams managing it. Ease of use factors to evaluate include:
How the CMS stores and structures content on the backend will impact the possibilities for frontend design, the types of applications and channels you can use, and the ability to reuse and repurpose content.
Page-based templates use a set of predefined page types and add content into these templates using a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editor. However, it comes with many limitations. Primarily:
It can be a good option for simple websites that use standard content types and don’t have frequent changes to content.
It's important to determine if the CMS offers the flexibility to meet your current needs. This includes the ability to support any unique content types, custom workflows, third party integrations, and customer channels you need. You shouldn’t have to adapt your strategy to fit the limitations of a CMS, it should be able to support the ideal customer experience you want to achieve.
Also consider the CMS's extensibility to ensure it can adapt as your needs evolve. Such as its ability to support new channels and use cases, allow for changes to content presentation, and integrate with different tools and data sources as your tech stack changes. While plugins could potentially fill this need, it's important to assess how easy it is to maintain these plugins as business scales.
Ensure the vendor offers the right types of support to get you up and running, such as training materials, integration guides, migration tools, workshops, and consulting. As well as options for ongoing customer support, especially if you want to be able to directly contact the vendor if there’s an issue.
Many CMSs are available as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) which is a delivery model where the CMS is accessed through the cloud.
In a SaaS model the vendor takes care of platform maintenance and updates and security patches are delivered automatically. Users pay a subscription to use SaaS tools, usually with a choice of different pricing tiers that include options for customer support and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that guarantee uptime and response times.
It's crucial to consider security when evaluating a CMS to ensure your data and operations remain protected. Some key security considerations include:
Some CMSs can be very cheap to get started with but, as your site grows and becomes more complex, can become incredibly expensive to maintain and extend. While other CMSs can require a larger investment up front but provide the functionality and structure to efficiently scale content and adapt to new use cases without scaling costs.
When calculating the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of a CMS keep in mind:
In a traditional CMS ties the content to its presentation, which restricts content to specific pages and channels. They can be a perfectly fine “all-in-one” solution for simple websites that don’t have frequent content updates. However, with more dynamic or complicated websites, changes to the frontend will inevitably impact the backend, limiting flexibility and holding your business back.
A headless CMS structures content independently of the frontend, enabling delivery to any frontend “head” via an API. This separation allows content to be reused in different ways across different channels, using any frontend framework. The flexibility of a headless CMS makes it ideal for companies that manage multiple channels, brands, or regional sites and need to be able to adapt to new customer demands quickly.
Hygraph is a headless, SaaS CMS that helps companies unify data from all their backend systems and use it to power dynamic, mission-critical content on any channel.
Best for: Teams that use unique content types, work with large amounts of content data, require workflows with granular permissions, or need to efficiently manage multiple brands, markets, and channels.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Prices per project/month, when billed annually.
Storyblok is a headless, SaaS CMS that focuses on giving content creators a visual editing experience, while keeping content structured and deliverable to any frontend via APIs.
Image source: Storyblok
Best for: Websites that are driven and maintained by the marketing team but have needs that a traditional CMS can’t handle well, such as omnichannel delivery or integrations with critical technologies.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Prices per month, when billed annually. Additional users can be added to any tier for $9/month.
Prismic is a headless, SaaS CMS for web and mobile sites. It lets developers create a set of predesigned components that content creators can use to visually build out on-brand pages fast.
Image source: Prismic
Best for: Marketing websites that have a strong brand design and minimal need for complex backend logic.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Prices per repository/month, when billed annually.
Builder.io is a headless, SaaS CMS that uses AI to turn designs made in Figma, the interface design tool, into code that follows your coding convention, brand design, and leverages existing components.
Image source: Builder
Best for: Design-centric marketing websites built by teams that already use Figma.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Strapi is a headless, open-source CMS that is geared towards the developer experience. It provides the foundational logic to support an API-first approach, and can then be extended in any way to add functionality and user features.
Image source: Strapi
Best for: Companies that have tight budgets and a development team that’s experienced with headless.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Prices for the self-hosted CMS per seat/month
Prices for the managed cloud CMS per project/month
HubSpot Content Hub is a monolithic, SaaS CMS that is designed to work alongside other HubSpot tools like their customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation platforms.
Image source: HubSpot
Best for: Companies that have invested in the HubSpot suite and use their website primarily for lead generation.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Prices when billed annually.
WordPress is an open-source CMS that is easy to get started with, even for users with limited technical experience. It offers a simple set of core features that the majority of users extend with third-party plugins.
Image source: WordPress
Best for: Blog sites and smaller, simpler websites that use standard content types and static pages.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
WordPress Pricing:
Free, but you take on the costs for hosting, maintaining plugin compatibility, manual version upgrades, and any premium themes or plugins you end up needing.
Drupal is an open-source CMS that is deployed as a monolith by default, but can be set up as a headless solution through customization. It’s a developer-centric solution that offers a lot of flexibility but has a steep learning curve.
Image source: Drupal
Best for: Drupal is best suited for companies seeking a complex, highly-customized website supported by an advanced developer team.
Key Features:
Pros:
Cons:
Drupal pricing:
Free, but you take on the cost of hosting, feature development, and the maintenance of customizations, extensions, and upgrades.
Joomla is a monolithic, open-source CMS that positions itself as the middle ground option for open-source website development, as it’s generally more versatile than WordPress and more user-friendly than Drupal.
Image source: Joomla
Best for: Professional websites that serve straightforward use cases.
Key Features:
Pros:
Cons:
Joomla pricing:
Free, but you take on the costs for hosting, maintaining extensions, manual version upgrades, and any premium themes or plugins you end up needing.
Along with the features listed above, the selection process for a new CMS should take into account plans to expand the website in the future.
Comparison table:
| CMS | Type | Best for | Dev involvement | Key strengths | Notable limitations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hygraph | Headless CMS (SaaS, GraphQL-first) | Multi-channel, structured content / federated content / microservices | Required for setup; low after | GraphQL-native, content federation, scalable | No native visual editing |
| Storyblok | Headless CMS (SaaS + visual editor) | Marketing + dev collaboration | Optional (visual-first, dev for custom) | Visual editor + structured content, components | Can get complex in large implementations |
| Prismic | Headless CMS (SaaS) | Component-driven websites | Moderate (dev setup + slices) | Slice-based architecture, dev-friendly | Limited backend customization, opinionated content modeling |
| Builder.io | Visual headless CMS + page builder | Marketing teams, experimentation | Low to moderate | Visual editing, A/B testing, personalization, AI | Not a full CMS backend; relies on external data sources |
| Strapi | Headless CMS (Open-source) | Custom backends, full control | High | Full customization, self-hosting, extensibility | Requires infra, maintenance, dev resources |
| HubSpot CMS | Platform CMS (SaaS, tightly integrated ecosystem) | Marketing, lead generation | Low to high (depends on customization) | Built-in CRM, SEO tools, automation | Platform lock-in, limited backend flexibility |
| WordPress | Traditional + headless-capable CMS | Blogs, SMBs, content-heavy sites | Low to moderate | Huge plugin ecosystem, flexible, easy to start | Performance/security depend on setup |
| Drupal | Traditional CMS (headless-capable) | Enterprise, government | High | Strong security, scalability, granular permissions | Steep learning curve |
| Joomla | Traditional CMS (Open-source) | Mid-complexity websites | Moderate | Built-in multilingual, balanced flexibility | Smaller ecosystem than WordPress |
Notably, the list above left off popular page-builders like Webflow, Wix, and Squarespace. While these solutions can be a decent option for personal blogs or small businesses with very simple and static websites, page-builders don’t offer key CMS functionality that business-critical sites need like integrations, workflows, and support for unique content types.
They also give very little backend structure to content which makes them difficult to scale and, when businesses do outgrow them, makes it very complicated to migrate content data to a new CMS.
If it’s been decided that it’s time to move off an existing CMS platform, the team probably already has a list of existing pain points and use cases they need the new CMS to solve. Along with consideration of current needs, the selection process should take into account the plans to expand digital business over the next few years and consider if it’s time to modernize to an API-first CMS.
Moving to another traditional type of CMS that locks you into templates and a monolithic way of working is going to lead to growing pains if you need to add new functionality, channels, or data sources down the line. Which means all the effort of migration will likely need to be redone in a few years.
Comparison table: traditional CMS vs headless CMS
| Feature | Traditional CMS | Headless CMS |
|---|---|---|
| Flexibility | Low | High |
| SEO Scalability | Medium | High |
| Performance | Medium | High |
| Omnichannel | Limited | Native |
| Dev Dependency | Low | Medium–High |
Whereas a CMS that exposes all content and functionality via APIs, like Hygraph, is easier to adapt to new use cases and can support a composable approach to technology that lets companies pick a tech stack of best fit tools, integrate their functionally, and easily add or swap out solutions as business needs change.
To learn more, check out our Ultimate Headless CMS Selection Checklist that covers how to:
Frequently Asked Questions
Evaluate ease of use, content structure, customization options, help and support, security features and total cost of ownership. Assess whether the platform can grow with your needs and support multiple channels.
A monolithic CMS ties the backend and frontend together, which is fine for simple sites but limits flexibility. A headless CMS decouples content from presentation and delivers it via APIs, enabling reuse across many channels.
Headless CMSs support composable architectures and make it easier to manage multiple brands, channels and content types. They also improve scalability and integration with modern tech stacks.
The article focuses on CMSs that provide robust backend structure. Page builders are excluded because they lack features such as integrations, workflows and support for unique content types.
Costs include initial setup (licences, development, training) and ongoing expenses such as hosting, maintenance and premium plugins. SaaS platforms often charge per user, content entry or API call.
Open‑source platforms like Strapi and Drupal offer flexibility and no licence fees but require technical expertise. Strapi’s community tier is free, while enterprise features come at a cost.
WordPress remains popular for blogs and simple sites due to its ease of use and plugin ecosystem. However, reliance on third‑party plugins can create maintenance and security challenges.
Begin by cataloguing current pain points and future requirements. Plan content modelling, data migration and integration with existing systems. Consider whether moving to an API‑first platform like Hygraph supports your expansion goals.
Yes. While some headless platforms offer visual editors, setting up the schema, APIs and integrations typically requires developer involvement.
Joomla has native support for 70+ languages, while other platforms rely on plugins or custom implementations. Always ensure your chosen CMS supports hreflang and content translation workflows.
Blog Authors
What makes a CMS agentic, and why it’s more than just adding an AI button.
AI is often framed as a quest for autonomy, but in content systems, this framing can miss the mark. It’s crucial to separate means from actual goals.
Discover the top 5 best CMS for localization in 2026. Compare multilingual CMS features and architecture to pick the right one for your global content strategy.
Last updated by Jing & Dayana
on May 25, 2026Originally written by Katie
The CMS you choose for your website has a big impact on the types of experiences you can create, how efficiently teams can manage them, and how easy it is to adapt and extend your website to meet future needs.
If you’re currently looking for the best-fit CMS for your site, here are some key factors to consider. We also list the pros and cons of 9 leading CMS solutions for website development: Hygraph, Storyblok, Prismic, Builder.io, Strapi, HubSpot CMS, WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.
The CMS should have the features and functionality that match the complexity of your site and the skillset of the teams managing it. Ease of use factors to evaluate include:
How the CMS stores and structures content on the backend will impact the possibilities for frontend design, the types of applications and channels you can use, and the ability to reuse and repurpose content.
Page-based templates use a set of predefined page types and add content into these templates using a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editor. However, it comes with many limitations. Primarily:
It can be a good option for simple websites that use standard content types and don’t have frequent changes to content.
It's important to determine if the CMS offers the flexibility to meet your current needs. This includes the ability to support any unique content types, custom workflows, third party integrations, and customer channels you need. You shouldn’t have to adapt your strategy to fit the limitations of a CMS, it should be able to support the ideal customer experience you want to achieve.
Also consider the CMS's extensibility to ensure it can adapt as your needs evolve. Such as its ability to support new channels and use cases, allow for changes to content presentation, and integrate with different tools and data sources as your tech stack changes. While plugins could potentially fill this need, it's important to assess how easy it is to maintain these plugins as business scales.
Ensure the vendor offers the right types of support to get you up and running, such as training materials, integration guides, migration tools, workshops, and consulting. As well as options for ongoing customer support, especially if you want to be able to directly contact the vendor if there’s an issue.
Many CMSs are available as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) which is a delivery model where the CMS is accessed through the cloud.
In a SaaS model the vendor takes care of platform maintenance and updates and security patches are delivered automatically. Users pay a subscription to use SaaS tools, usually with a choice of different pricing tiers that include options for customer support and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that guarantee uptime and response times.
It's crucial to consider security when evaluating a CMS to ensure your data and operations remain protected. Some key security considerations include:
Some CMSs can be very cheap to get started with but, as your site grows and becomes more complex, can become incredibly expensive to maintain and extend. While other CMSs can require a larger investment up front but provide the functionality and structure to efficiently scale content and adapt to new use cases without scaling costs.
When calculating the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of a CMS keep in mind:
In a traditional CMS ties the content to its presentation, which restricts content to specific pages and channels. They can be a perfectly fine “all-in-one” solution for simple websites that don’t have frequent content updates. However, with more dynamic or complicated websites, changes to the frontend will inevitably impact the backend, limiting flexibility and holding your business back.
A headless CMS structures content independently of the frontend, enabling delivery to any frontend “head” via an API. This separation allows content to be reused in different ways across different channels, using any frontend framework. The flexibility of a headless CMS makes it ideal for companies that manage multiple channels, brands, or regional sites and need to be able to adapt to new customer demands quickly.
Hygraph is a headless, SaaS CMS that helps companies unify data from all their backend systems and use it to power dynamic, mission-critical content on any channel.
Best for: Teams that use unique content types, work with large amounts of content data, require workflows with granular permissions, or need to efficiently manage multiple brands, markets, and channels.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Prices per project/month, when billed annually.
Storyblok is a headless, SaaS CMS that focuses on giving content creators a visual editing experience, while keeping content structured and deliverable to any frontend via APIs.
Image source: Storyblok
Best for: Websites that are driven and maintained by the marketing team but have needs that a traditional CMS can’t handle well, such as omnichannel delivery or integrations with critical technologies.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Prices per month, when billed annually. Additional users can be added to any tier for $9/month.
Prismic is a headless, SaaS CMS for web and mobile sites. It lets developers create a set of predesigned components that content creators can use to visually build out on-brand pages fast.
Image source: Prismic
Best for: Marketing websites that have a strong brand design and minimal need for complex backend logic.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Prices per repository/month, when billed annually.
Builder.io is a headless, SaaS CMS that uses AI to turn designs made in Figma, the interface design tool, into code that follows your coding convention, brand design, and leverages existing components.
Image source: Builder
Best for: Design-centric marketing websites built by teams that already use Figma.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Strapi is a headless, open-source CMS that is geared towards the developer experience. It provides the foundational logic to support an API-first approach, and can then be extended in any way to add functionality and user features.
Image source: Strapi
Best for: Companies that have tight budgets and a development team that’s experienced with headless.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Prices for the self-hosted CMS per seat/month
Prices for the managed cloud CMS per project/month
HubSpot Content Hub is a monolithic, SaaS CMS that is designed to work alongside other HubSpot tools like their customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation platforms.
Image source: HubSpot
Best for: Companies that have invested in the HubSpot suite and use their website primarily for lead generation.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
Prices when billed annually.
WordPress is an open-source CMS that is easy to get started with, even for users with limited technical experience. It offers a simple set of core features that the majority of users extend with third-party plugins.
Image source: WordPress
Best for: Blog sites and smaller, simpler websites that use standard content types and static pages.
Key features:
Pros:
Cons:
WordPress Pricing:
Free, but you take on the costs for hosting, maintaining plugin compatibility, manual version upgrades, and any premium themes or plugins you end up needing.
Drupal is an open-source CMS that is deployed as a monolith by default, but can be set up as a headless solution through customization. It’s a developer-centric solution that offers a lot of flexibility but has a steep learning curve.
Image source: Drupal
Best for: Drupal is best suited for companies seeking a complex, highly-customized website supported by an advanced developer team.
Key Features:
Pros:
Cons:
Drupal pricing:
Free, but you take on the cost of hosting, feature development, and the maintenance of customizations, extensions, and upgrades.
Joomla is a monolithic, open-source CMS that positions itself as the middle ground option for open-source website development, as it’s generally more versatile than WordPress and more user-friendly than Drupal.
Image source: Joomla
Best for: Professional websites that serve straightforward use cases.
Key Features:
Pros:
Cons:
Joomla pricing:
Free, but you take on the costs for hosting, maintaining extensions, manual version upgrades, and any premium themes or plugins you end up needing.
Along with the features listed above, the selection process for a new CMS should take into account plans to expand the website in the future.
Comparison table:
| CMS | Type | Best for | Dev involvement | Key strengths | Notable limitations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hygraph | Headless CMS (SaaS, GraphQL-first) | Multi-channel, structured content / federated content / microservices | Required for setup; low after | GraphQL-native, content federation, scalable | No native visual editing |
| Storyblok | Headless CMS (SaaS + visual editor) | Marketing + dev collaboration | Optional (visual-first, dev for custom) | Visual editor + structured content, components | Can get complex in large implementations |
| Prismic | Headless CMS (SaaS) | Component-driven websites | Moderate (dev setup + slices) | Slice-based architecture, dev-friendly | Limited backend customization, opinionated content modeling |
| Builder.io | Visual headless CMS + page builder | Marketing teams, experimentation | Low to moderate | Visual editing, A/B testing, personalization, AI | Not a full CMS backend; relies on external data sources |
| Strapi | Headless CMS (Open-source) | Custom backends, full control | High | Full customization, self-hosting, extensibility | Requires infra, maintenance, dev resources |
| HubSpot CMS | Platform CMS (SaaS, tightly integrated ecosystem) | Marketing, lead generation | Low to high (depends on customization) | Built-in CRM, SEO tools, automation | Platform lock-in, limited backend flexibility |
| WordPress | Traditional + headless-capable CMS | Blogs, SMBs, content-heavy sites | Low to moderate | Huge plugin ecosystem, flexible, easy to start | Performance/security depend on setup |
| Drupal | Traditional CMS (headless-capable) | Enterprise, government | High | Strong security, scalability, granular permissions | Steep learning curve |
| Joomla | Traditional CMS (Open-source) | Mid-complexity websites | Moderate | Built-in multilingual, balanced flexibility | Smaller ecosystem than WordPress |
Notably, the list above left off popular page-builders like Webflow, Wix, and Squarespace. While these solutions can be a decent option for personal blogs or small businesses with very simple and static websites, page-builders don’t offer key CMS functionality that business-critical sites need like integrations, workflows, and support for unique content types.
They also give very little backend structure to content which makes them difficult to scale and, when businesses do outgrow them, makes it very complicated to migrate content data to a new CMS.
If it’s been decided that it’s time to move off an existing CMS platform, the team probably already has a list of existing pain points and use cases they need the new CMS to solve. Along with consideration of current needs, the selection process should take into account the plans to expand digital business over the next few years and consider if it’s time to modernize to an API-first CMS.
Moving to another traditional type of CMS that locks you into templates and a monolithic way of working is going to lead to growing pains if you need to add new functionality, channels, or data sources down the line. Which means all the effort of migration will likely need to be redone in a few years.
Comparison table: traditional CMS vs headless CMS
| Feature | Traditional CMS | Headless CMS |
|---|---|---|
| Flexibility | Low | High |
| SEO Scalability | Medium | High |
| Performance | Medium | High |
| Omnichannel | Limited | Native |
| Dev Dependency | Low | Medium–High |
Whereas a CMS that exposes all content and functionality via APIs, like Hygraph, is easier to adapt to new use cases and can support a composable approach to technology that lets companies pick a tech stack of best fit tools, integrate their functionally, and easily add or swap out solutions as business needs change.
To learn more, check out our Ultimate Headless CMS Selection Checklist that covers how to:
Frequently Asked Questions
Evaluate ease of use, content structure, customization options, help and support, security features and total cost of ownership. Assess whether the platform can grow with your needs and support multiple channels.
A monolithic CMS ties the backend and frontend together, which is fine for simple sites but limits flexibility. A headless CMS decouples content from presentation and delivers it via APIs, enabling reuse across many channels.
Headless CMSs support composable architectures and make it easier to manage multiple brands, channels and content types. They also improve scalability and integration with modern tech stacks.
The article focuses on CMSs that provide robust backend structure. Page builders are excluded because they lack features such as integrations, workflows and support for unique content types.
Costs include initial setup (licences, development, training) and ongoing expenses such as hosting, maintenance and premium plugins. SaaS platforms often charge per user, content entry or API call.
Open‑source platforms like Strapi and Drupal offer flexibility and no licence fees but require technical expertise. Strapi’s community tier is free, while enterprise features come at a cost.
WordPress remains popular for blogs and simple sites due to its ease of use and plugin ecosystem. However, reliance on third‑party plugins can create maintenance and security challenges.
Begin by cataloguing current pain points and future requirements. Plan content modelling, data migration and integration with existing systems. Consider whether moving to an API‑first platform like Hygraph supports your expansion goals.
Yes. While some headless platforms offer visual editors, setting up the schema, APIs and integrations typically requires developer involvement.
Joomla has native support for 70+ languages, while other platforms rely on plugins or custom implementations. Always ensure your chosen CMS supports hreflang and content translation workflows.
Blog Authors
What makes a CMS agentic, and why it’s more than just adding an AI button.
AI is often framed as a quest for autonomy, but in content systems, this framing can miss the mark. It’s crucial to separate means from actual goals.
Discover the top 5 best CMS for localization in 2026. Compare multilingual CMS features and architecture to pick the right one for your global content strategy.